Like Lovers
by Kia Vail-Kagami
Summary: Rated for tiny little incest hints. Request fic for Mirri, about Laguna thinking about the people he loved in his life. (Laguna + Julia, Raine, Kiros and Squall)


Little Laguna + Squall ficcy for my Mirri-chan. Hope you like it. ^^

Disclaimer: Eins komma bla bla hoch zehn. Means: Same as always, but I'm too lazy to 

repeat it. No mine.

Warning: Little Shonen Ai and incest. ^^ (If you don't like that, don't read it.)

Like Lovers 

By Kia

Looking back it doesn't seem like such a long time since I last came here, since I last walked over the polished tiles and down the steps. The hall hasn't changed at all over the years, it still looks exactly the same like it did when I came here to hear Julia play, twenty years ago.

_I_ haven't changed.

I'm older now, of course. Twenty years, it shows, even in my face. But I don't look that old, do I? I don't feel old.

At least not older than Kiros…

Inside, I'm still the same, at least on the surface. Coming to think of it, that sentence didn't make much sense, did it? But that's just how it is.

I still behave like a child sometimes, and most of that time that's how I feel as well. I wonder how much Julia would have changed, if she was still alive. I wonder what she would think of me if she could see me now. Would she still like me? Did she ever like me, in the first place?

I guess she did. At least she wrote that wonderful song for me. And of course, just as I walk down the steps and towards the bar, the band that stands on the stage in her place begins to play exactly that song, a slightly different version, but still. Maybe someone up there doesn't like me…

When I remember Julia now it is so hard to believe that I only talked to her once, that we only spent this one evening together. In my memory it seems like we've been like lovers all the time, while she was playing the piano in her beautiful red dress and I was sitting in the corner, watching her without ever finding the courage to come closer.

All those enemies and soliders can't scare me, but when it comes to woman…

Like then, Kiros and Ward are with me now, not only as friends but as bodyguards as well, though they'd never admit that. But of course I noticed how they always scan the room for potential dangers. I mean, I'm not blind or something. Well, at least I'm not _that_ blind.

In my opinion they should finally stop that and go enjoy themselves. Beside the fact that with so many people at this party it would be hard to tell which of them is right now planing to kill me, I don't think that so many people even know who I am. President of Esthar, okay. Esthar has a president? Wow! But certainly not _that_ silly guy! Nope.

I've seen Julia's daughter about an hour ago. She was surrounded by young men, all unknown to me, and some older guys that knew her mother when she still used to sing here. She looks pretty much like her, and yet there is a huge difference between them. Rinoa seems charming as well, but more lively and less… elegant, I think. I don't know her at all and I don't think I want to.

But seeing her made me wonder what would have been if Julia and I actually had had a chance. To be honest, I don't think we would have ever gotten that far, though of course I like to say otherwise. We'd been too different, I just wasn't the kind of guy that could have made her constantly happy. So when I got lost during the war she decided that I was dead and married some military guy. But I was already in love with Raine when Kiros told me, so it didn't hurt me at all.

It _almost_ didn't hurt me at all.

Raine…

She was pretty, but compared to Julia she looked almost plain with her simple clothes and long brown hair. But she had such beautiful expressive grey eyes and a smile that melt my heart time after time. She also had a frown that could scare me to death. The perfect match for a guy like me, huh? At least that's what Kiros once said.

Plus, there was Ellione. Such a cute little girl that made us all feel like we were part of a family. Like we belonged together.

Seems like we did.

Julia and I had been like lovers long before we ever talked to each other. With Raine it was different. We had been friend first, and tough we often behaved like lovers it needed a long time until we finally got together. My love to her was strong, stronger that what I ever felt for Julia but she was also my best friend besides Kiros and Ward, so when she died I lost more than my wife and the mother of my child.

I didn't even know about that.

Losing her was the most painful experience in my life. It wasn't only her death that hurt me so but also the fact that she needed me and I wasn't there. I didn't know, I had my reasons and I know she wouldn't blame me but that knowledge didn't help at all. What did help was Kiros. We never talked about it, but he was there for me whenever I needed someone. Ward too, of course, and I'm eternal thankful for that, but with Kiros it was still different. We, too, had been like lovers once, though I don't know if Ward even knows about it. I also don't know how Kiros feels about me, but I do know there was a time I loved him more than friend should. That was long ago, before I ever saw Julia, but even tough we never crossed that certain line it deepened our friendship and he became my pillar of strength, that helped me remain the person I was every time my heart broke.

Sometimes I think I only fell in love with Julia so easily because it helped me getting over Kiros.

I hope he never finds that out. Oh dear, I hope I don't speak in my sleep…

My live is complicated!

One year ago it got even more complicated. It started when I met Ellione again, after seventeen years of separation, and she told me about the circumstances of Raine's death and our little son she so much wanted to show me when I came back. Of course I didn't come back in time and no one of the people of Winhill would ever have thought about telling me that I was a father.

When I met Squall shortly after I didn't need Ellione to tell me who he was. Raine had passed all her scary sides to him, that glare, that frown, yet also her beauty that looks to strange in a face that just seems like a more feminine version of my own.

Surprisingly he didn't kill me when I told him.

The band's still playing, some new song I've never heard before. I look around me, Kiros and Ward are still standing at the some spot they stood when we came here, about five drinks ago.

I guess it's time to tell them to go and find some nice woman to dance with since there is obviously no serious danger for me here. But when I do so Kiros just tells me that with me around it's always dangerous, and if there isn't a problem already I would certainly make one. Besides, the other people here have to be protected form me. So much for his friendship…

I return to my drink and can't help but notice that I'm starting to get a little drunk, when suddenly the guy that stood beside me on the bar disappears and is replaced by another one, dressed in a SEED-uniform, with unruly brown hair and beautiful grey eyes that look so much like Raine's that it hurts. Without even looking at me he orders a drink and empties the glass within two seconds. He orders a new one.

"What happened to you, that you have to drown your despair in alcohol?" I ask, smiling a bit idiot like. He finally is so nice to look at me and I can't help but drown in those eyes.

"Zell and Irvine," he answers and adds, utterly serious. "Someday I'm going to kill them."

"I thought so!" I laugh. Those boys are much too lively, it makes me think that they are just the perfect company for him. He needs someone like them to pull him out of his dark thoughts sometimes. Or like me. Does he want to kill me as well? Hm… Kiros and Ward haven't done anything to prevent that yet.

Getting drunk is nice. While Squall has his second drink I have my sixth one. Could also be the seventh… or eighth… Who cares, anyway?

I kinda feel the need to do something silly.

"Would you mind waiting here for a moment?" I ask Squall. "I'll be right back."

He kind of smiles, something I've rarely seen him doing before. "Yeah, of course," he replies. "I'll be waiting here. I promise." He smiles a little more, as if those words have a hidden meaning I don't understand. But he doesn't explain and so I leave to have a short talk with the band-people.

I'm back before the last song ends and the new one begins. The voice of that young woman on stage sound pretty much like Julia's now.

_"Whenever sang my songs, on this stage, on my own,_

_Whenever said my words, wishing they would be heard…"_

Raine loved that song, but somehow we never danced to it, I don't know why. Maybe she would have felt strange, dancing to a song another woman wrote for her husband.

I've never, ever danced to this song.

Time to change that.

I grin at Squall and offer him my arm as I ask: "Wanna dance?"

He only looks at me in bewilderment. "With _you_?"

"Yupp!"

He stares at me for a long second. Oh, that glare! Raine would be so proud of him… From the corner of my eyes I see Kiros looking at us. He looks like he's going to die. That alone would be worth it.

_"My last night here for you, same old song, just once more._

_My last night here with you, maybe yes, maybe no…"_

"I bet you can't even dance!" Squall finally growls and I know I've won.

"You'll see!" I smile and take his hand.

He isn't even drunk yet, so I don't know why he agreed to this. But thanks to Ellione he also knows the story behind this song, as the only living person beside me, and somehow it seems so right as I lead him to the dance floor. Some people are staring at us, either grinning or about to faint, but I don't care and neither does he, as we start do dance as if we never did anything else.

Almost like lovers.

_"So let me come to you, as close as I wanna be._

_Close enough for me to feel your heart beating fast."_

_"And stay there as I whisper_

_How I loved your peaceful eyes on me._

_Did you ever know_

_That I had mine on you?"_

-end-

April 22, 2003__


End file.
